The ConsumHERist - Ah, Italia!

Posted on | July 24, 2008 |

By, Delia Passi

I’m writing this from the comfort of my parents’ home in Italy. (Yeah, poor me, but notice that I am working on my vacation.) I’ve been in Italy for a week and have visited three regions, observing the communications skills of the Italian culture in each. I can’t help myself. I may need years of Italian therapy to rid myself of this compulsion.

What I’ve observed of Italian men is that they are a little better in non-verbal communications skills than American men, but not a lot. My husband observes the Italian women. I observe the Italian men. It’s only fair or so he says.

Italian salespeople, men mostly, are naturally very good at demonstrating that they are listening with body motions such as nodding and hand movements. The stereotype of Italians using their hands to underscore the message they speak is absolutely true. This cultural tendency gives Italian salespeople an advantage.

I wrote recently about the importance of showing signs that you are listening. Nodding is good. Nodding and verbalizing empathy is better. Nodding and rephrasing is better still. In Italy they are terrific with the nodding and hand motions but not much different from American salespeople when it comes to the verbal support we look for to give us comfort in the sales process.

I speak enough Italian to manage in a store and therefore can concentrate on how the sale is made and not the language, and it’s pretty clear that the sales experience in Italy is only marginally better than it is at home. I suspect that nowhere in the world is the typical sales experience everything that it can be, so there’s lots of opportunity to improve things for all of us.

I hope to get to other cultures to observe their sales communications skills. I’ll start with those with food I like. I may need to check on the Italians frequently.

Next – Words That Speak to Her

Delia Passi, Founder of WomenCertified® and author of Winning the Toughest Customer: The Essential Guide to Selling to Women is a regular columnist on eBrandMarketing. Want my take? Email me and visit my sites www.medelia.com, www.womencertified.com

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